FVR FOR 2004: Can former President Fidel V. Ramos (1992-1998) legally run for president again in the 2004 election? Most lawyers we’ve talked to said he is barred by the Constitution from doing that. We are inclined to believe them.

Allow us, however, to do a little exercise by arguing the opposite. We refer to Article VII (Executive Department) of the Constitution which says:

“Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.(underscoring ours)

“No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term for which he was elected….”

The question revolves around the term “reelection.” We submit that reelection means being elected again to the same position that an elected official is currently holding.

In this sense, when a former president runs for the position that he used to hold, he is not running for reelection. He is simply running again for his former post. To be considered running for reelection, he must be the incumbent elected president at the time he runs again.

(Style trivia: Our Constitution uses a hyphen in Vice-President and in the word “re-election.” We don’t. Incidentally, the US Constitution also has Vice President without the hyphen.)

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GAP MAKES DIFFERENCE: Note that in the second paragraph of Section 4 quoted above, the charter speaks of a maximum limit of “two successive terms” for the Vice President instead of simply saying “two terms.” It also speaks of a possible “interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term….”

To us, this could mean that an interruption or a gap in the service is accepted as potentially affecting the qualification of a Vice President (and, by extension, of a President) to run again for the same office.

In the case of Mr. Ramos, the full-term gap between the 2004 polls and his 1992-1998 term may qualify him to run again for president. If he decides to run in 2004 (he has said he would not), he could claim that he is not running for “reelection” but is merely “running again” for president.

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CHECK THE MINUTES: Aside from asking the Supreme Court, anybody interested in finding the answer to the reelection question can go to the minutes of the Constitutional Convention and there find the intention of our elders who wrote the 1987 charter.

If you think our “FVR-can-run-again” argument is confusing, wait till former President Erap Estrada starts raising the more complicated possibility of his also running again in the event Mr. Ramos makes a bid for it.

If Mr. Estrada runs, is he running for reelection or is he just running again for president? In the case of President Arroyo, if the lady changes her mind and runs in 2004, she cannot be considered as running for “reelection” since she was never elected president.

Mr. Estrada once asked how he could be legally barred from running again while President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not barred — when by 2004 GMA would have served longer (almost four years) than Mr. Estrada did (more than two years). Good point.

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POLITICAL FAD: The political landscape and many generally held assumptions have changed with the announcement of GMA last Dec. 30 that she was not running in 2004.

The politically accepted stance these days is to praise GMA’s decision and express readiness to cooperate with her pursuit of a government of unity. All for the sake of the country.

Having shed her partisan colors and vowed to concentrate on serving well, GMA could be this country’s hope for redemption at this stage when only Bangladesh, it seems, is below us in the descending list of regional economies. A Filipino weeps when recalling that once upon a time only Japan was ahead of us in the economic race within the region.

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TACTICAL INVITATION: It was tactically shrewd for GMA to have made an open invitation for the opposition and other political forces outside her administration, including those categorized by the United States as terrorists, to join the government.

Possibly for fear of either being coopted or being exposed as false patriots, the communist New People’s Army et al. and the secretly secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front have rejected the offer for key roles in the proposed unified government.

That is good. At least on record, GMA had made an offer but the anarchists declined it. She cannot be accused later of not reaching out to them.

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CRITICAL COLLABORATION: But still, piecing together a multi-sector administration as in a parliamentary setup will be extremely difficult.

We have been reared in a political climate where a group of persons or parties called the majority governs while a necessary minority nags and needles the group in power. Asking the opposition to work with the administration is almost akin to luring them to play the role of collaborators, a dirty word.

In the Philippine setting, however, there is really no practical difference between and among politicians and political parties. They are all the same. With this, even the most virulent opposition leaders should have no problem “cooperating” with GMA in the name of patriotism.

More so if the opposition senses that GMA has succeeded in arresting her decline in the polls and has in fact started to gain ground. The opposition may have to grudgingly say it is ready to cooperate. The term “critical collaboration” suggests itself.

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TIME TO COOL DOWN: In keeping with the President’s new conciliatory tack, her spokesmen should be less combative.

When PCSO director Linggoy Alcuaz, for instance, exposed what he said were irregularities in the Sweepstakes office, GMA’s spokesman retorted that Alcuaz just wanted to become PCSO general manager.

But that did not answer the specific charges. The retort was just a cheap ad hominem, which is unfortunate.

Remember when Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez said he gave P8 million in checks to First Gentleman Mike Arroyo? The President’s spokesman also went off track when he said the money was solicited by Bulacan Rep. Willy Villarama. That remark did not answer Jimenez.

The spokesman’s diversionary tactic only provoked Villarama into divulging more checks (for a total of P18 million) that Mr. Arroyo allegedly instructed Villarama, then chief of staff of Vice President Arroyo, to collect from Jimenez.

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JUST IN JEST: Before we forget again, last time we listed some possible moves of GMA that we said could provide the drama and impact needed to jolt the nation (Postscript, 02Jan03).

Among the things that GMA could do, we said, was to divorce her husband Mike or send him to some faraway land as ambassador. We hasten to point out that we said that in jest. This clarification was carried in our on-line ePostscript (at www.manilamail.com), but it was too late to insert it in the version printed in the STAR.

However, the other five impact moves listed, including the removal of Justice Secretary Hernando Perez (done) and the doing away with the PPA (purchased power adjustment) doubling our electricity bills were suggested in all seriousness.